The described technology relates to an ice producing apparatus, such as for a refrigerator, and more particularly such as for a refrigerator including a bottom freezer compartment disposed below a top fresh food compartment, and a corresponding method.
In a known refrigerator, an ice maker delivers ice through an opening in a door of a refrigerator. Such a known refrigerator has a freezer section to the side of a fresh food section. This type of refrigerator is often referred to as a “side-by-side” refrigerator.
In the side-by-side refrigerator, the ice maker delivers ice through the door of the freezer section. In this arrangement, ice is formed by freezing water with cold air in the freezer section, the air being made cold by a cooling system including an evaporator.
Another known refrigerator includes a bottom freezer section disposed below a top fresh food section. This type of refrigerator is often referred to as a “bottom freezer” or “bottom mount freezer” refrigerator. In this arrangement, convenience necessitates that the ice maker deliver ice through the opening in the door of the fresh food section, rather than the freezer section. However, the cool air in the fresh food section is generally not cold enough to freeze water to form ice.
In the bottom freezer refrigerator, it is known to pump cold air, which is cooled by the evaporator of the cooling system, within an interior of the door of the fresh food section to the ice maker. This arrangement suffers from numerous disadvantages, however. For example, complicated air ducts are required, within the interior of the door, for the cold air to flow to the ice maker. Further, ice is made at a relatively slow rate, due to limitations on a volume and/or temperature of cold air that can be pumped within the interior of the door of the fresh food section. Another disadvantage is that pumping the cold air from the freezer compartment, during ice production, reduces a temperature of the fresh food compartment below the set point.